


maybe when your hair gets darker, maybe when your eyes get wide

by gottagofast



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Both of them, Gen, alien hunter mulder started the true believers club, and scully has a hard time not picking fights with jerks, god Giant nerds, punk!scully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:19:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2276379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottagofast/pseuds/gottagofast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She spends the last half hour of class copying down notes and aggressively not thinking about Fox Mulder and how weird he is.</p><p>or, Mulder talks back and Scully swears she isn't trying to encourage him</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe when your hair gets darker, maybe when your eyes get wide

Theres no windows for the late afternoon sunlight to filter in but the lethargy of dragging your feet at the end of the school day is almost a physical presence. Which is partly why, Scully, half asleep, copying notes by muscle memory alone, jumps about six feet in the air when Skinner breaks the silence.

“Mulder!” he barks.

From the back of the classroom where the industrial light always falls short no matter how many times they call in the electric company to fix the flckering bulb, comes Mulders voice.

“Sir?”

“Feet _off_ “

“Whats the magic word?”

Scully sucks on her teeth to hide a grin, someone coughs and everyone is trying to look at Mr Skinner without making it obvious. She wants to turn around and take a good look at what alien hunter rebellion looks like, but shes not sure Skinner wouldnt glare at her too and she and him are on thin ice anyways. She’d never be accused of being too timid, not especially after he’d docked her a full letter grade for not handing in an assignment _he_  lost and she’d let him have it.

She's not sure about Mulder, he’d probably think she was conspiring with him, if she turned around now. There was one time freshman year, Mulder had caught her staring at his name tag when he’d written spooky underneath  _hi my name is_  and winked at her like she had just laughed at a joke he told.

To his credit Skinner never loses his cool. His moustache seems to tremble with repressed fury and in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, his eye twitches. Without missing a beat, as if he’s done it a thousand times, he points at the door and the sound of Mulder's feet hitting the floor breaks the silence.

Mulder, who hadnt had time to make a lot of friends in between starting up the schools true believers club, driving out to the outskirts of Albuquerque at 2 a.m. every weekend to look for possible landing sites, and finding a way to write aliens into every school essay, didn't get much in way of support from the rest of the class. 

She eyes him as he passes her desk, knit sweater tucked into the back of his pants and the tag sticking out the collar. Like always, like he can just tell whenever she’s looking, he looks down just as he’s passing her desk and smiles a barely there half smile. Scully, feeling a little combative, instead of glancing away like usual, stares right back until he looks away, stopping at the end of the row to salute Skinner so lazily, it'd get him kicked out of the real army, before slipping out.

Skinner shouts “See me after class for notes.” just before the door closes, and then its quiet again. She doesnt regret it, but suddenly she's a little nervous about staring at him so blatantly, because it feels like the beginning of something.

She spends the last half an hour, copying down notes and aggressively not thinking about Fox Mulder and how weird he is.

She's getting ready to start shoving through the bottleneck of students at the door when Skinner stops her.

“Hold on one sec, Dana,” he sticks his head out the door and reemerges followed by Mulder, who’s usually relaxed, always calm, but now looks like he’s one step up from falling asleep.

He slings his coat and bag over his shoulder, stacking things in proper orders that dont seem very proper and crossing out things on sticky notes and Scully checks her watch, sure her mom's going to kill her even if it isn't her fault she's late. “Dana,” he says at last, when Mulder has started to fidget, “will give you her notes,” and without so much as a backwards glance, leaves them in the classroom.

By the time shes got her notes out of her bag, she's thought of three different excuses she can use to get out of next class in case she cant quell the urge to punch him next time. She thinks Mulder might have looked... irritated? Maybe? She can't be sure because he always looks like that; someone could slug him around the head with a baseball bat and he’d still only look mildly surprised for a minute before going back to his magazine.

Mulder has actually forgotten about their teacher in favour of going over Scully's notes because the realization that she totally dots her i’s with hearts is, like, top of his priority list right now. 

“What do you even do back there all class?” she asks when she realizes they arent saying anything, and she _does_  want to know but shes not, like, interested. Just the two of them walk towards the door and Scully catches herself before she turns to look at him standing inches away in the doorframe. He wants to say something about the way her cheeks colour, but he’s irritating, not a total jerk so he doesn't.

“I write articles for independant zines on extraterrestrial phenomenon.”

Mulder doesnt like the way she purses her lips like she’d been hoping for a different answer, but he smiles at her anyways because he’s used to it and also (sue him) he likes her. 

She skips out in front of him, feeling daring, feeling a little bit like pushing. “In between the ones you write for class?" 

He drops his skateboard on the ground and catches it with his foot, considering her. He knows what she really means even if she doesn't, so he nods gravely. "Laugh all you want, Scully.” 

The look she gives him, like she wants to smile but cant bring herself to give him the satisfaction, makes him feel giddy like a kid. Scully doesnt notice because she’s too busy not giving him the satisfaction.

“The truth is out there.” he tells her, and pushes off.

The vice principle brushes past Scully a second later bristling and shouting after him down the halls “Not in the _school,_  Mulder!" Scully almost breaks then, but doesnt.

She can still see him down the hall. His NICAP hat looks stupid and maybe she likes it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this could be really bad, i have no way of knowing so im sorry if it is! also sorry its not punk!scully, i mean it could be read that way, i just never explicitly said it. on top of that ive only seen like half of the first season.
> 
> oh and also maybe it is??? punk!scully??? bc the title comes from punk rock princess??? oops


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